(Staunton, VA — September 1, 2017) On Friday, September 1, the Staunton Media Lab will debut a breakthrough in assistive technology — the ARMi Assistive Technology Arm — putting advanced technology within reach of the disabled.

The ARMi (short for "Advanced Recreational Media Interface") is a portable, mechanical arm that allows for "hands-free" use of smartphones, tablet computers, remote controls, and other useful devices. The ARMi Assistive Technology Arm also holds many devices useful for disabled or mobility-challenged persons, including a mirror, a magnifying glass and a magnetic plate.

The ARMi was developed as an inexpensive document reader for the blind. Document readers for the blind can cost several thousand dollars — too expensive for many who need them. However, smartphones that cost less than $100 can read documents to the blind — if the person has help holding the phone. The ARMi Assistive Technology Arm provides those helping hands. With the ARMi and a smart phone, blind persons can easily position the phone and have books and documents read out loud by the phone.

The ARMi begins selling on Amazon October 1 for only $99. However, during the month of September, the ARMi is available for only $69 through Kickstarter. Supplies are limited to 1,000 units.

The Staunton Media Lab (SML) is pleased to present a new video release entitled How Does a Blind Person Edit Video? Watch as SML Audio Director Coley Evans, who is blind from birth, edits a video using Windows Movie Maker.

SML hopes you will share this extraordinary video. It's built around a screen capture from Coley's first effort at video editing. You are seeing something even Coley can't see: what it looks like when a blind person edits video.

How Does a Blind Person Edit Video? was made with the following process:

Coley downloads video from YouTube and opens in Windows Movie Maker

Coley starts the screen capture program, Screencastify, which makes a movie of his desktop

The screen capture movie is converted to MP4 using VLC software

Video of Coley editing video without a monitor or a mouse was added (Shot with a Canon HD Cam saved to an SD card)

Video of short interview with Coley was added (Shot with a Sony MiniDV Cam to an EZ Grabber capture card to OBS)

Music was downloaded from a credited source of copyright-free music

Two synthetic, machine-generated voices are heard in this video

The final video was edited by Devon Donis, Video Editor at SML, using Adobe Premier

Directed by Steve O'Keefe, SML Executive Director

Produced by Staunton Media Lab — Video & Audio Editing by the Deaf, Blind and Uniquely Able

Copyright-Free 2017 by Staunton Media Lab. Please feel free to download and distribute this video as long as the contents are not changed and this copyright notice is intact. Thank You!

As Staunton Media Lab continues to cover the latest strides in assistive tech, we'd like to start 2017 by focusing on recently released reports that forecast rapid growtth in the field. The three recent reports we'd like to highlight focus on voice-recognition technologies across several industries, including healthcare; on assistive rehabilitation technologies like robotic prosthetics; and on the needs of the elderly.

Voice Recognition Tech Forecast

Research and Markets released its "Global Markets and Technologies for Voice Recognition" report earlier this month, an update from its now three-year-old report on voice recognition technologies, "due to the growing demand for enhanced enterprise, consumer and healthcare applications that feature speech as a primary user interface." The report covered "advances in machine learning, statistical data-mining techniques, ubiquitous mobile devices and other technologies," spanning across many markets and industries, including, for instance, transcript applications for healthcare, and voice-integrated navigation systems.

Did you ever pause to think that the term "assistive technology" is a tautology, like "free gift" and "new innovation"? All technology should be assistive, by definition. In many cases, Assistive Technology we refer to means technology specifically designed to help the disabled and uniquely-abled individuals.

Truth is, assistive technology needn't be so narrowly defined. It helps us all to communicate more accurately and successfully. As the latest wave of apps and software that falls into that broadly defined category demonstrates, it's for anyone who could use some help expressing themselves, like forming thoughts, putting them into words, and spelling them correctly. After all, they are just tools that allow you to perform tasks faster and with greater results, freeing up your time and mind to do more, with less stress.

Forbes contributor Jenn Choi, in her recent article titled "Cutting Edge School Tech: Focus On Differences," writes about using assistive tech in education that has the power to "change the playing field for the student and affect the whole entire classroom."

She elaborates:

"[A]dvancements in ed tech are allowing a great number of individual students with disabilities who really need technology not only reach higher levels of learning, but the move allows for a positive ripple effect throughout the classroom. That is, fellow students also experience numerous benefits just by being a classmate of the student with a disability."